The Thunder Games
by agirlwithafanfiction101
Summary: An old school assignment of mine, this details the events of the Hunger Games...if the characters were water droplets. With a killer twist ending, you'll find this is different from the Hunger Games. I do not own the Hunger Games. May the odds ever be in your favor!


THE

THUNDER GAMES

by Heather Jensen

originally be Suzanne Collins and co.

Warning: Not recommended if you have never read _The Hunger Games_

I aim carefully at the stag. One wrong move and it would go crashing through the undercloud. _Zinggg! _My bow and airsnow held true. The stag was dead, and would evaporate into mist soon if I didn't take it back home to District 12 and care for the meat properly.

"Nice shot. Gonna share?"

I jump about a foot. "_Hail!_"

I turn around and punch him lightly. I didn't want to hurt his shooting arm, not with his large family, not with this the only way they got food. "I thought you were an Official. I thought I was going to have to give this up!"

Hail laughs. "Preparing for the Weeping, then?"

I groan. "I just hope Swim and I aren't chosen."

Hail starts to say something, probably trying to comfort me, but I shake my head, lift up the already-misting animal, and begin to maneuver my way through the woods, toward the lightning gates. The lightning that made it so dangerous had gone out long ago. Even though it was against the law to hunt in the woods, they couldn't keep me out with fences that didn't have a single volt of lightning coursing through them. I just thank my lucky drops that District 12 was more or less ignored, being the last, most poor district out of all twelve.

Swim and my tired mother would love the plump stag. I bite at a hangnail. Though Hail promised to take care of them if I was tribute to the Capitol, I worry silently that my mom will leave again and then Swim, my baby sister, will die. I shakily take a breath and drop from the woods, commonly known as the Floods, cloud down to the district cloud.

Buying a cup of minty tea with an old meat rib from a deer, I sip it down in one breath. Swim wouldn't be chosen at the Weeping. Swim wouldn't go to the Thunder Games, and Swim wouldn't be picked off by bloodthirsty, macabre, District One (or Capitol) careers, who planned to win and be set for life. She would be fine. And so long as I keep telling myself this, we would both be fine, safe and sound.

The next morning, I pull on my best, non-stained evaporation shift-just in case- and drop down to fog, the weeping selection platform. Luckily, I didn't fall into a sinkhole and start raining, since the fog was less stable than District 12. Yet another reason to hate the weeping.

Swim and I sit in the back row, near the clear Officials, ready to arrest any disruptive family members of perspective tributes. Effie Trinket, the perky, fashionable, but totally clueless, dive who selected the tributes, starts talking.

Leeka catches my eye. I blush, cursing myself as I do so. When we were small, he had given my burnt pita bread when my family was starving, and, I suspect, gotten beaten by doing that. I was in his debt, probably for life, since my family, however small, barely had enough food to stay alive.

"...seventy-fourth Thunder Games to remember the rebellion commonly known as the Dust Bowl. Two tributes are randomly selected from each district. They must be twelve to eighteen. The Thunder Games are held on Earth. Participants rain down to Earth in a very safe, very luxurious, Capitol raincar. The practice arena is always in the ground, but the Games arena is kept secret until the very last second, although I will reveal that it is in some sort of plant. Good luck in the games, and may the odds _ever_ be in your favor!"

I grimace. Effie's speech, the same every year. Not Swim was all I ever thought. I remind myself that the odds are actually in her favor. That she's only in once, unlike me. At age sixteen, I'm entered in the Weeping thirty two times, four times because it's my fourth time in, and then twenty-eight more times for each extra barrel of wheat, barley, flour, and other food supplies that they give for extra entries into the huge giveaway; as in, your life or food. Your choice. Piranhas swim crazily in my stomach, and a single drop of used water spills from my lip.

"Leeka Mallark."

I relax, letting out all the air in my lungs. But wait- _Leeka._ The boy who gave me bread, pita bread, the boy who saved me from starving to death. No. I shake my head, shivering a little, trying to calm down. No one would miss him, no one but maybe me and possibly his parents, and, as selfish as it may be, he wasn't Swim. Swim was safe. There was almost zero chance now that she'd be called. I hug her, my shoulders automatically drooping. "Tea after this?"

She nods and give my hand a tiny squeeze.

"Swim Everdeen."

Effie's words pierce my world and my heart. Swim stands up, her already-thin legs losing used water, trembling and weak.

No! This couldn't happen! The odds were in her favor! I couldn't abandon her like a used tissue.

"I VOLUNTEER!" I screech, hearing desperation and the cracking of my words, knowing I can't go back, but also knowing I would never forgive myself for not doing this horrible thing.

Swim stares at me, her mockingjay-wide blue eyes shimmering with tears that spilled over. I stand. My mom watches through centimeter wide cracks in her fingers, utterly stunned, her two precious daughters up, ready to be in the Thunder Games, ready to murder and be murdered.

My baby sister, my little sister, my favorite, my wise sister, my baby girl, walks away from the stage. I shudder and stumble up to the stage, standing with Leeka, watching my fingernails turn to ice as I shiver. I know I'm visibly shaking, but I can't stop myself. Effie says something quick and meaningless about honoring our country, and pulls us both to the abandoned raincar station, where we would wait to say our last words to our family.

My mother comes to say goodbye, crying and obviously worrying, desperately wondering where she would get her food to support herself and Swim.

"Hail will provide for you, OK? Send Swim to school. Make her understand-" my voice breaks and a lump the size of a hairball forms in my throat, but still I continue,"Make her understand...that it's not her fault."

She leaves the room after kissing me on the cheek and wishing me luck.

I glance around the room, examining the fungus growing from the ceiling, the metal doors separating Leeka and I's waiting room from the rain area, the rickety wooden chairs set around the place.

Swim waltz into the dank, dark, filthy waiting room. "Katniss-" she begins.

I shush her with one finger and gather her onto my lap. As I finger comb her silky blonde hair, I softly sing "The Hanging Tree", a soft, sweet melody the miners used to sing. Before my father died in the tragic cave in three years ago, he had taught me how to sing.

Soon, she had to go, leaving me. No one else would come, because no one else cared, and so Leeka and I would go to the practice arena.

I sneakily look at Leeka out of the corner of my eye. He has gotten no visitor, so he sits alone on a chair, lightly humming "The Hanging Tree". He winks.

I snap my head back around.

Effie trinket drops in, followed closely by a tall aqua blue man. I blink, slightly shocked. Effie's hot pink hair had become a metallic silver. The man had darker liquid.

His makeup was less eccentric than Effie's; he only had gold eyeliner and eyebrows, though that was still surprising. Effie had bright green lips, vivid yellow blush, pink eyeshadow, blue mascara, and red styled eyebrows, plus she had colored her limbs pink and green, as if they were clothing. What were they going to do next in the Capitol-shave their heads then dye their bare scalps? With their outrageous makeup, they belonged in a circus, and not the good kind.

Effie claps her hands excitedly. "Let's be on our way to the practice arena. Oh, you must be soooo excited!"

"Real excited. Can't wait for my funeral." I murmur sarcastically.

Effie ignores me. "Cinna-can you-I don't know- is she beyond your help?"

Cinna laughs, a deep, throaty rumble.

"_No one _is beyond my help, especially not this girl. Basis of a supermodel, she has."

I blush and look down nervously. Personally I don't think my Albuquerque sky blue skin, olive eyes, and dark hair was anything special, but I won't argue.

Something digs hard into my palm. A small mockingjay pin-the symbol of rebellion, ever since the mockingjays, a genetic experiment of the Capitol, turned on them-had been pressed into my hand. I hadn't even realized it. It must have been Swim.

Cinna snaps his fingers twice. Two ridiculously dressed and cosmetic-covered servants condense into the air. "Oh, darrling," Pink Liquid giggles girlishly to the other, showing off her crop top and shorts," let's never gas-form travel again.." She pulls of a helmet.

Cinna coughs. The girls stop. Then stare.

"Oh no," the girl with pink liquid starts,"You're from District 12? Oh, you poor thing!"

I grit my teeth. "You realize I'm thinking the same of you and your plastic face?"

"Oooh, it's feisty. I like it." the girl with star-and-moon speckled liquid laughs admiringly.

Cinna shakes his head. "I want_ her_-not it- scrubbed so that every single fleck of dirt has left her body. Bring her to

raincar three, my studio, when you're done."

After I was scrubbed, dried, moisturized, and overall stripped of any dry skin, dirt, pubic hair, or dignity I might have, I was dressed in a very thin, almost see-through, robe. Cinna was sitting in an egg-shaped chair hanging from the ceiling, deeply immersed in a thick, spiral sketchbook.

"Hi." I interrupt.

Cinna snaps the notebook shut and looks up. "All right. Here." he said, tossing me a sweater and cargo pants,"Follow me."

He turns away politely.

I throw the Capitol-ized clothing on and follow him through the raincar. I can feel the raindrop falling faster and faster. I peek out the window. We were heading straight for the ground, there in about thirty minutes.

Cinna came back with a measuring tape. He quickly strings it around my waist, arms, hips, ankles, and any other places he sees fit, including my head. I sincerely hope that I'm not getting some type of ski mask.

"Go get something to eat." he finally declares. "We'll be at the practice arena in approximately twenty-two minutes and fifty-three seconds."

I nod. "Thank you."

He shoos me off. "Go, get acquainted with Leeka and the others."

I rush into the dining raincar. Leeka's already there, chowing out on chocolate-covered disks of fried dough, blueberry biscuits, mint tea, roast meat, gravy, mashed potatoes, and dried leaves covered in day old mist.

I sit down next to him, my plate loaded with the meat, mint tea, and strange egg-shaped green things that taste juicy and fresh, kind of like crispy water; the buffet leader says they are "green peppers" imported recently from Earth.

Leeka glances uncertainly down at his plate as an intoxicated (probably off the poppy wine they keep behind the counter) man wanders in. He heads straight to us and leans over our table.

"Immm Haymitch." he drunkenly coughed, his eyes rimmed with red and his words slurred. "Yoooure districtss mentor, yooure only viictar."

"We really don't need you. We'll probably do better on our own without you." I murmur, realizing suddenly- I was in _the Thunder Games_. I had to kill people or be killed.

Haymitch laughs cruelly. "Oh, yoooue need meeme. Whodaya thinkish going to shponshor you?"

I stand up, shoving the table as I swallow the last of my meat. "I can shoot a bow. I could kill you right now, and there's nothing you could do about it. I don't need _you _ruining my image."

"Ohohoho, whhat about the kidsh who shave been _trained_ for this? What yooure goonna do then, ehy? Face it, darling, you need an angle to get the sponsors who will pay to save you. And that's where I come in." He smiles, revealing two missing teeth.

"What's the angle?" Leeka interjects, before another rebellion between myself and Haymitch starts.

"You two- boyfriend and girlfriend. Play the lovers who have to kill each other to live. Sympathy gainer, am I right? Haha, so many suckers are going to fall for it. Maybe both of you can live, too. Maybe." Haymitch reports, not slurring and stuttering a bit.

Suddenly an alarm blares loudly. "All tributes to room five for Gamekeeper evaluation."

Haymitch reaches for another wine bottle. "Trust me, it'll work. I'll handle it. Go impress the judges."

I growl, "Yeah, that'll be easy."

Leeka starts walking, looking kind of dazed and shocked, probably from learning about the new love of his life.

I roll my eyes. "I still think we can do this on our own, but it might help."

I grab Leeka by the wrist and drag him off, leaving Haymitch to wander around and precipitate somewhere else.

Leeka stumbles into room five with me. All the other tributes, the buffed-up careers who intended to win and be set for their life, the smaller twelve-year-olds, so timid and shy, then us, the two tributes stalling our death. A boy examines me, and, smirking, whistles. I scowl at him.

I lean in and smooch Leeka, before I really know what's happening. He looks like he's in utter bliss and kisses me too. Mutters shoot around the room like firecrackers, words like,"Oooh, the die-hard lovebirds from District 12-literally."

"Thanks for the P.D.A." Effie Trinket says expressionlessly. "Will you and your..companion save it for the arena?"

I try and blush cutely. Leeka turns, smiles, and romantically says,"Maybe," swooping in for a quick spoon on the nose.

Effie, clearly not impressed by this loving display of affection, sighs," Just get yourself onto a platform."

Leeka hugs me, lifts me up, and sets me gently down on the platform, acting perfectly in character.

Or is he acting?

The first pair of tributes plummet down toward the ground. Then District 2. Then the next, and the next, all of them except us.

Effie turns to us. "May the odds ever be in your favor." she says stiffly, pulling the release lever.

We fell twisting and turning toward the ground. Leeka grasps my hand. I look toward him, screaming.

"FIRST TIME RAINING?" he shouts over the wind rushing in our ears.

"YEAH!" I yell back.

"ME TOO!" he screams, before we land-_hard_- onto thick brown mud. I sink into it, Leeka holding tight as we dissolve downward.

Within five seconds, we were in a spacious hallway, looking into a glass-encased room. Inside, about twenty gamekeepers sat around a huge table laid with a bounteous feast, including a huge hog with an apple in its mouth, a green salad dotted with red tomatoes, more pig-pot roast-, chocolate and brown swirled pudding, and huge freckled quail eggs.. The District 11 group steps out, not looking at each other and heading separate ways, probably already plotting back-stabbing actions. I feel an overwhelming surge of relief as I looked at Leeka, still clenching my hand, and realize I won't have to do that with him.

Leeka smiles weakly. "Ladies first." he announces optimistically.

I rub my forehead. This was happening too fast. Right after this, we went straight to the Thunder Games. I would be dead before nightfall!

As I walk into the room, I spot a second table that holds all sorts of various weapons, lances to atlatls, spears to bows, knives to tripwires, bombs to spiked clubs.

"Please show us your talent and why you are going to be amazing in the Games." a Keeper drearily says.

I snatch a bow and airsnow from the table and head back toward the red, blue, and yellow targets, glancing back.

Two Keepers were lazily eating. Three were staring at the ceiling. Five were picking at their fingernails. Four more were tapping out a rhythm on the table. A couple more neatly cut their food in lady-like bites. Only three were paying attention to me.

I grip the bow tightly. Didn't they realize lives were being ended, and they were more interested in their hangnail?

I shoot a dummy.

A Keeper drops a fork and jumps.

I boil over like a pot on the stove too long, because they've let this Games junk go on way too long.

I spin, furious, and shoot straight through the core of the apple in the pigs mouth, purposely making it narrowly miss the Keeper nearest the hog. "Like that?!"

I twist back around, shoot every single stupid plastic dummy in there, turn again, and shoot just above each Keeper's head, pinning their hair to the wall.

I curtsy. "And that's what I think of your _precious little games. _Kill volunteers if you must, not innocent twelve-year-olds! The Thunder Games _are nothing more than a cruel joke_."

I stride angrily out of the room.

Leeka stares at me. "Wow. You. Were. AMAZING."

"Thanks."

I'd only been here an hour so far, and now I had exactly twenty minutes, then I'd be shipped off to the Games. Already. I was still coming to terms with the fact that Leeka was chosen, let alone Swim, let alone me being in their stinkin' Capitol-controlled mind game.

I pull open the **DISTRICT 12 **door, nearly pulling it off its bark hinges. I throw myself onto a leaf-leather armchair and glare angrily at Cinna, because he's involved in all this Capitol stuff too.

Cinna, unfazed, tosses me a black set of clothes. "I designed them specifically for you, as an archer, and for the Games. Enjoy."

I throw the clothes over my shoulder like a sack, still simmering on low boil over all this, all the Thunder Games. I just want to go home and see Swim, but I'm not sure I'm ready to kill for that.

Yanking on the dark blazer and knit pants on, I gaze, frustrated, at the shiny mirror. The blazer and pants were very slimming, with sleek red lines going down them. The blazer had an asymmetrical pattern to it, and the pants ended at the ankle. I pulled on the crisp black boots that buckled up halfway to my knee and examine the effect.

I slam the door of the dressing room. Cinna studies me, then motions wordlessly for me to twirl. I go on the ball of my toes and twirl, shrugging as I stop.

Leeka comes in the room then, smiling. "Good news! Two people- as long as they're from the same district- can win the Games."

I gape at him. _We could both live._ How was the news about our couple status already out? I knew our whole raincar experience was more or less already on TV back home, but how did Haymitch manage to make us so popular they changed the rules? The wonders he can do when he's sober!

"Don't I get anything?" Leeka teases Cinna.

"No, you're fine." he jokes, handing Leeka another set of black and red outfit.

I collapse on the floor, praying to the God almighty-if there was one, because he had let the Games go on for seventy-four years-that Leeka and I would live. That I would see Swim again. And if not, if he had to take me back here to Heaven, that she wouldn't blame herself.

Cinna casts his eyes toward me. "Didn't know you were religious. Isn't that outlawed?"

"Oh, come on. I've already poached from the Floods. Now I'm in the Games. What else can they do to me?"

Cinna solemnly mutters,"You don't want to know."

On that note, Leeka came out of the second room wearing an outfit remarkably similar to me.

"Spin." Cinna commands.

Leeka did an exaggerated bow, then spun on his heels.

"One more thing. You are my lucky pair. You two can win. Now, if you press this little gold button on your clothing.." he instructs us.

Suddenly I'm surrounded by bright flame. I gasp. "How?"

"Not real flame. Now, do that on the platform and when you win. If you are about to die, press that button. It literally sends up a flame as soon as the Games start."

"ALL TRIBUTES TO THE THUNDER GAMES PLATFORMS NOW."

Cinna holds our gaze for one last moment. "Make me proud."

We march down the corridor, followed by many other tributes with hardened faces and sad looks. Only Leeka and I look confident, triumphant, and absolutely thrilled. We could win, and we have help on our side, by both Haymitch and Cinna, and, apparently our sponsors.

I grip Leeka's hand, then let go as we leave the hall and step onto separate moving platforms that zip us inside an oak tree. A golden weapons table with as much variety as at the Gamekeeper's room stood crookedly on grassy ground. The oak forest that hid inside the tree stood tall and proud. No human had ever figured out that oak trees had forests in them.

I twine my hair back into a curly braid. Scores from the Keepers flash in the sky, meant to earn sponsors. I wince. Mine would be horrible, maybe even one out of ten, thanks to my angry demonstration, and that meant no more sponsor help. No one wants to help a no-talent loser. I wish I had held my tongue and my airsnow.

They go through the other districts, us always dead last, each varying degrees of good, great, and average, then finally, KATNISS lights up the sky. I pray desperately for a half-decent score.

Ten bursts out. I gasp, and so did the other tributes. No one had _ever _gotten a perfect ten.

LEEKA shone against the stars. Leeka inhales sharply while I stay on Cloud 9 and wait for him.

flashes.

I stare speechless at the star studded sky. There had been no team with such good scores, ever1

BANG! I scramble off my platform into the cold forest. I had to get the bow and airsnows from the weapons table, and fast.

I shoot for it. I can run fast; you have to, to outrun wolves and bears.

I grip it, just as a scrawny, black-haired, ocean-blue liquided kid grasped it. We played Deadly Tug Of War. Suddenly he let go with a cry of pain and fell to the ground. A black scythe pierced his body like a key in a lock. It could have been me.

I took the bow from his remains and dashed into the middle of the great big forest, the arena. I hear thunder, the doomsday bell that rings when there is a death.

Groaning, I hurtle toward a tall mighty tree and sit at the very top, carefully strapping myself to the branch by the buckles on my boots and sleeves.

I close my eyes. Soon it would be completely, utterly, blissfully dark, and I would live another day. For now, it would take a monkey to reach me up in the tree.

Birds tweet and chirp themselves into my consciousness, along with a finger pressed to my lips and a hand digging into my wrist. I must have fallen asleep. Dumb thing to do, deadly thing to do, dooming thing to do.

I can't move. This can only mean one thing-my doom. I slowly swivel my head to look at my captor.

It was a young girl, probably 12, with skin the color of-what was it called?- Gatorade, curly black hair, dark, wise, eyes, and a spear strapped to her back. She gestures down with her toe, then up. Huddling around a burnt-out campfire were the offerings from District 8 asleep. A girl and a guy. Above me, a huge nest of tracker jackers hung from the top branch of the tree. How could I have missed that?

Tracker jackers were like deadly hornets-one sting from them, and you were gone within a minute, barely enough time to say goodbye.

The girl effortlessly pulls on a pair of rubber gloves, quickly switching her hands while still hanging on to the tree with all her might, then starts very slowly moving the nest. I didn't move, not as it brushed my cheek, not as a jacker landed on my cheek, not until finally all the jackers and hornets were being held as far away from the girl and I as they could be.

"What's your name?" she whispers in a high breathy voice.

"Katniss." I say quietly back.

"Nice to meet you, Katniss. My name's Rue. Run for your life!"

She drops the tracker jacker nest onto the smoldering fire and throws herself onto the ground, immediately picking herself up and bolting away.

I quickly copy her actions, trying not to wince or listen as I hear the District 8 pair cry out, and then be silent.

Catching up to Rue, I manage to cough out,"Why didn't you kill me too?"

Rue pointed to my chest, where the mockingjay was pinned, still running fast without showing any sign of tiring while I hack and cough. Finally she starts to cough and gasp for breath too, and only then do we drop down besides a tree.

Rue turned to be and smiled. "In District 11, where I farm specifically, the Mockingjay is our sign of hope. I knew I could trust you if you pinned it to your breast."

"Chest," I reply," but thank you. Thank you. I am in your debt. "

She smiles again, her eyes automatically squinching up. She was like a District 11 Swim. No way could I abandon this sweet little angel.

Leaning back on the ground, Rue pointed to my bow and very seriously remarks,"My sister was like you. Except she shot oranges."

"Oranges?" I question.

"To drink the juice, obviously." Rue tells me.

"Ah, of course." I answer, "Logically."

For the next few hours as I scoop berries from bushes and pick trout from the long winding stream that cuts through our stretch of the woods, Rue dreams up and passes on stories about her district to me. I cry, laugh, and coo in all the right places. I like this kid. But I can't shake away the nagging feeling that to survive, I'd have to kill either her or Leeka.

"I'm going to get firewood. You stay put." I interrupt eventually, swinging the tiny pocket knife Rue had loaned me.

"Oh,oh-I'll get the fire started! Rue cries, wanting to be helpful.

"You do that." I order teasingly.

Very few berries were edible, I notice as I stomp toward a small pile of underbrush. Nightshade, for example. Super poisonous.

Suddenly a shrill scream pierces through the still night. I hear thunder roar. _Rue!_

I race to the campsite, trampling anything in my way. I dart in and out of tall, mighty trees that mock me and my little existence.

I rush into our big fire pit.

With Rue laying beside it, her own spear through her back and a boy standing beside her.

"No!" I screamed. He looked up, preparing to take aim with his lance, but I nock an arrow before he can say lightning and shoot him straight through the heart. Instant death. Kicking him aside, I drop beside Rue.

Rue clutched my hand. "It's okay, it's okay. Win..the..Thunder Games...for me..okay?"

"Don't talk like that, Rue, you'll live. " I say, frantically searching for something I can use to pull the spear out. "It's all right. Hang on. You'll live, Rue, you'll live."

"No, Katniss. No, you have win..to do..that, you have to...live...I'm okay with dying..honest, I am. If it means..you can win...without...having to kill..me. It's okay."

"Don't worry. You'll live." I start to pull the spear out, breaking off the tip.

"No. I won't. It's okay..you just...promise me...you'll win the Thunder Games...and tell my sisters that I died...because you were like them and I protect my family...Thank you, Katniss. Win for me...It's okay..I love you."

"No,it's not okay! It's not okay! It's not okay.." I bawl, but Rue says no more. She was still breathing.

I start singing.

"Close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be all right. By morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound."

I hold Rue as she takes her last breath. "It's not okay. But I'll win, Rue. I love you, so I'll win for you. I love you."

Rue opens her eyes for the last time. "I love you, too."

Her eyes close as her heart stops.

Rue's body would be picked up by the Capitol soon. They had to know, they had to know, she wasn't just another chess piece dead in their games.

I gather the prettiest, brightest flowers I can find. I gently takes the spear out. Carefully intertwining flowers in her hair, in her clothing, in the spear wound, everywhere, I stroke her hair, trying to calm myself and stop crying. But I can't stop the salty tears that run forever down my cheeks. She would live on in me. I embroider daisies into a crown and set it on her queenly head. "Safe and sound." I sing lightly as I kiss her forehead and say goodbye to the girl who didn't want to win.

I leave before the Capitol can get me. Would they keep what I did for Rue a secret, or publicize it? Probably a secret. Everyone wants to see hate and madness, not love, honor, and pride. People were sick. I don't care. I'll spread the word of the real reason Rue died and what I did for her more than they ever could. Everyone must know about Rue.

I walk around mourning for a while.

Everything beautiful brings her to mind. I see her in the yellow flowers that grow by the stream. I see her in the mockingjays that sing in the trees.

Stopping and crouching beside the stream, I stare sadly at the Career camp, then do a double take.

Leeka. Hanging around with the best of them. I need to see them without getting too close.

Surely the Capitol was watching me to see what I would do...

"YO! Haymitch! No help with Rue, huh? You'll pay-later! Right now, I need some binoculars!" I shout upward, stepping backward a safe distance before beginning and ignoring the frightened woodland rodents.  
I wait. I kick a rock. I pick leaves out of my hair. I fiddle with my mockingjay pin.

"I'M NOT VERY PATIENT HAYMITCH!" I scream eventually.

A silver parachute drops from the sky. Binoculars.

"Mercy, Haymitch, what took you so long?" I mutter, reaching upward for it.

Tossing the silver parachute to the grass, I focus them on the camp.

Two Careers poke sticks covered in raw meat in the fire. Raw meat that looks human. Cannibals. If we're going to kill each other and play their advanced adult chess game, let's be humane and honor others. Like Rue.

I wasn't going to honor those neanderthals.

Leeka appears by a huge pyramid of food. Food I'd work for months to get back home. Yet, thanks to their sheer mass of sponsors, what with Leeka and the lot of them, they literally had a ton.

A slip of paper flutters out of the binoculars.

I bend down carefully and examine it.

DeAr Katniss,

Remeanber that a distrect pare can win. Im sarry aboot Rew.

Haymitch

I grimace at his butchered words and handwriting and look at Leeka. Leeka, the boy with the bread.

I lift up my bow and aim carefully. I don't want to kill anyone, on accident or on purpose. Killing Rue's killer was a bigger error than killing Rue.

_Zinggg!_ My arrow hits the top of the pyramid. Leeka gasps and tosses the box in my direction, looking at me, then closing his eyes and jumping as the pyramid blows up behind him.

I almost cry at Leeka's wounds. I had pulled him from the stream and ran like a cheetah back to a cave I had seen earlier. I knew that it would be a good place to stay until we needed food.

Leeka's legs from the knee down are almost blown clean off.

I bend over him. His legs gushed water. At this rate, he'd die within the hour. By the meager light of the cave, I bind the stubs of his legs with the few scraps of his burnt up pant leg I have.

His eyes flick open weakly. "K-katniss.." he begins.

"No, shhh...sleep. You're too weak. Shh..." I pour the bit of bottled water I have down his throat. "That'll moisturize you, but you need more."

He chokes, nearly coughing it up, but swallows and falls into a fitful sleep.

I step outside. "HAYMITCH!" I cry. "You've let Rue die! Don't let Leeka die! We need some proper bandages and HEALING SALVE. That would be GREAT! If you aren't too DRUNK TOO HEAR ME!"

Hopefully, the last comment would convince him to send the salve.

I gather up six or so berries from the nearest bush, checking to make sure they're edible.

I mush up the red berries and poke them in his mouth. Stepping outside immediately after, I spot a silver parachute tangled up in a berry bush.

A tiny bottle of creamy white salve sat waiting on the ground, along with some white cloth.. I sigh of relief and rush into the cave. Another cryptic message waited.

Deer Katniss

GolDEN aRch feast and supply replenish tonight..are you going. Leeks a liabilitey bit yoo two can make it. Distrcit five, three ,two and one eleven still inIT TOWEN IT.

What do you mean to derunk to heer you?

HAYMITCH

I crumple the note up in my fist. Leeka is nowhere near well enough, but I had to go to get more supplies. With time, there wouldn't be enough wild game and he needed to heal. Sure, the Golden Arch Feast and Supply Replenish was a great place to eat and stock up. It was also a great place to get killed by other hungry, bloodthirsty murderers. Whatever could go wrong?

I gently rub the salve on Leeka's remaining bits of leg. I flinch as he winces when I touch his bone, but other than that, he was doing great holding back against the pain. He groans softly, twitching. I wrap the cloth around his leg.

"Leeka." I whisper. "Leeka."

"Katniss." he replies woozily.

"I'm going out. Hunting. I'll be back with meat, and everything. Soon. I promise. "

"Katniss..no..you're going to the feast..you'll die."

"Leeka, you yourself will die if I don't get water, more bandages, more food." I shoot back. "I'm going."

"Katniss.." he hoarsely mutters.

I shove the last berry in his mouth, sling my bow and quiver over my shoulder and willed myself into gas form.

It wasn't safe, not now without the proper gas protections that kept you from disappearing forever into the air. But to be their first, and fast..

I burst into a million pieces. Just my eyes were hundreds of different, non-seeable droplets.

I sneak through the forest, zooming along, trying to keep my drops together.

Finally I saw the Golden Arch. I re-condense into the air. What a rush.

Suddenly Leeka condensed in thin air and collapsed onto the ground beside me.

"Leeka!" I shout. "What the-why-?!"

Leeka's leg had a thin layer of salve spread over it, though not healed. But he did look immensely better. Although I wouldn't say it out loud, the bottom halves of his legs, or what was left of it , would probably need to be amputated, if we even lived.

"LEEKA! WHY WOULD YOU FOLLOW ME!" I exploded.

"Sorry." he muttered. "I had to help..because..I love you."

What a good actor. "Great. Now we're both going to die! Thanks. Thanks a whole stinkin' lot." I start furiously, adding,"I wanted District 12 to have a victor, but noooo, you have to save the day and kill-"

"Then maybe you should stop arguing and being mad on our last day." he states simply, canoodling for a brief second then slipping away again.

"Cut it out, or you'll give me eleutheromania." I mutter, using the longest word I knew to confuse him.

"A sudden urge for freedom? Oh, but this _is _freedom."

"NO. It's not." I say rebelliously. "It's a game set up by the Capitol to make us kill."

Leeka laughed softly. "They couldn't make us kill. If we didn't want to, they couldn't make us. I mean the Careers would, obviously-" he pointed at his legs, struggling slightly to stand," but we wouldn't have to do it. We could eat nightshade, for instance, kill ourselves nonviolently. The Thunder Games would end.

"Stay down!" I hiss, ducking as a javelin spirals through the air and flew through another tributes chest. The dying kid lunges forward and pushes a dagger through her killer's heart. They fall.

"Let's go!" I snarl.

Right on cue, we both shiver into gas form and float across the woods.

"Leeka!" I murmur. "Great time to be a theoretical genius-almost made us horse meat."

"Oh, don't be the wet blanket. We survived, didn't we?" he replies airily.

"This in the face of death? If you want to live and love, and I think you do, learn to listen, and be silent!"

We're quiet as we flew over the stream and land behind the Gold Arch.

Five teenagers lay dead, all with something sticking in their chests or with limbs dismembered.

"Leeka." I hyperventilated. "Only one left. Stay in gas form. We could win this."

"Hate to burst your bubble, my pretty, warrior, archer princess. But I believe I'm winning this." a gruff voice howls.

I turn around slowly, horrified as I transition into drop form.

It was the muscular light blue boy who had whistled at me.

"Cutie, guess who's winning now? Bye, bye District 12."

He lifts his own bow.

I pull out mine.

How could we even be having a standoff?

I yank back, staring at him.

But I don't let go.

I can't kill him. I won't kill him. I look at Leeka.

"You're right." I admit. "I won't kill him."

I drop my bow and grab for Leeka's hand.

The creepy flirtatious tribute giggles,"All mine then-"

He gasps, chokes, and collapses.

Rue stands behind him, holding a bloodstained spear.

"That's what you get, you useless, lying, back-stabbing, plotting traitor! How dare you!"

"Rue..how..you..died." I sobbed, tears running down my cheeks.

"Haymitch. He saved me." she says softly, stepping over the other boy's body. "And Leeka. He gathered medical supplies from Haymitch." she adds as we start walking, me supporting Leeka, to the Golden Arch to eat the remains of food.

I stop in my tracks."Rue. There can only be two. Someone has to die."

We all looked at each other, and each of us volunteer instantly. I had a moment of déjà vu, remembering volunteering for Swim. This was so different.

A silver parachute lands on the ground, with a single note attached, big enough that we can all see.

KATNISS,

NEW RULES. ONLY ONE CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHERS DIE.

My hands shake. Then Peeta smiles. And starts laughing.

This is a strange reaction from someone with a 67% chance of death.

"Here's what we do.."

"We'll eat the nightshade on the count of three." I shout. "1...2..3!"

We start chewing.

"No! Stop!" a frazzled Effie Trinket cries, emerging from a tree. "You all live. SPIT IT OUT!"

We all spit on the ground, just like we planned. We alone had lived through peace, without killing. Or at least trying not to.

Effie huffs,"You better get going. The Gamekeepers practically want to murder you, and they're not the only one. You're unbelievably lucky that you're not choking down poisonous berries right now. Here's a tunnel out of the tree. You three know how to evaporate, right?"

Leeka and I shake our heads, the ignorant pair, but Rue chirps out,"Yep!"

Funny how she could be so upbeat when she just killed someone she knew. Funny how she could be so happy when she had just snuffed out a life to save her own.

Funny how I could just judge her when Leeka and I had, too.

I suck in a breath. Killing definitely left a scar on the soul. What backwards, twisted world was this where killing was encouraged? Faith in waterity: depleted.

Effie, obviously annoyed, shoves us both onto a huge leaf. "In five seconds, you'll feel a pull to the clouds. Go with the flow.

I lay down next to two of my four favorite people in life. I feel the pull, clasp their hands, and shoot upward, just like my airsnow.

THE END

-Haymitch


End file.
